Automated accessibility scans should run on a recurring schedule that matches how often your site changes. For most websites, weekly scans cover the core pages and catch regressions before they pile up. High-change sites (ecommerce, news, SaaS marketing pages) benefit from daily scans. Lower-change sites can stay on a biweekly or monthly cadence. Scans flag approximately 25% of accessibility issues, so frequency is about monitoring for regressions, not measuring WCAG conformance. Conformance is determined by a (manual) audit.
The right scan frequency reflects your publishing rhythm, your risk profile, and the role scans play inside a broader accessibility program.
| Site Type | Recommended Cadence | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Ecommerce (Shopify, WooCommerce) | Daily or weekly | Frequent product, theme, and app changes |
| SaaS marketing sites | Weekly | Active landing page and content updates |
| News and publishing | Daily | High publishing volume, template reuse |
| Corporate or informational | Biweekly to monthly | Lower content turnover |
| Government or education | Weekly | Compliance posture, distributed content owners |
What automated scans actually do
Scans crawl pages and check code patterns against a rule set. They catch issues like missing alt attributes, empty links, low contrast on static text, missing form labels, and certain ARIA misuses. These are real issues worth fixing, and catching them quickly is the whole point of running scans on a schedule.
Scans cannot evaluate context. They cannot judge whether alt text describes an image meaningfully, whether a heading structure reflects the page’s logic, or whether a custom widget is operable with a keyboard. Scans only flag approximately 25% of issues. The rest require a (manual) audit conducted by a trained auditor.
How does scan frequency connect to risk?
Sites that change daily accumulate accessibility regressions daily. A new product page, a swapped image, an updated template, a third-party widget refresh — each is a chance for an issue to land in production. Daily or weekly scans catch those regressions while they are still isolated and easy to fix.
Lower-change sites face less regression risk. A corporate site that updates a few pages per month does not need daily scanning. Monthly cadence keeps watch without generating noise no one will act on.
What scan frequency works for ecommerce?
Ecommerce sites are the strongest case for daily scans. Product catalogs change constantly. Themes get updated. Third-party apps inject markup. Marketing teams swap banners. Each change can introduce contrast issues, missing labels, or broken focus states.
Daily scans on a defined set of templates (home, collection, product, cart, checkout) produce a steady signal. Weekly scans work for smaller stores with slower update cycles.
What about SaaS and web applications?
For SaaS products, marketing pages and application screens move on different timelines. Marketing pages can follow a weekly scan cadence. Application screens behind login often need a different approach because scans struggle with authenticated states and complex components.
Scans on the public-facing pages help catch regressions in templates and shared components. Inside the app, scheduled (manual) audits at major release intervals do more for conformance than any scan cadence can.
How scans fit inside an accessibility program
Scans are a monitoring layer. They run between audits to keep an eye on the work that has already been done. After a (manual) audit identifies issues and remediation closes them, scheduled scans help confirm that fixes stay in place as the site evolves.
Accessible.org positions audits as the source of truth for WCAG conformance and scans as the ongoing pulse check. The cadence question is really about how often you want that pulse check.
Signs you should increase scan frequency
A recent redesign or theme change, a new CMS or platform migration, frequent third-party script additions, multiple content owners publishing without review, or recent demand letter or lawsuit activity in your industry all raise the regression rate. Moving from monthly to weekly, or weekly to daily, gives you a tighter feedback loop while the underlying risk is elevated.
Signs your current cadence is fine
Low content change volume, a strong internal review process before publishing, a recent (manual) audit with remediation completed, and scan reports showing stable issue counts week over week all suggest the cadence is doing its job. If your scans return the same picture month after month, increasing frequency at that point adds noise without adding insight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can scans replace an audit if I run them often enough?
No. Scan frequency does not change what scans can detect. Running a scan every hour still flags approximately 25% of issues. WCAG conformance requires a (manual) audit. Scans monitor; audits evaluate.
How often should I get a (manual) audit if I am scanning weekly?
An annual audit works for most sites, with a follow-up audit after a major redesign, platform migration, or significant feature release. Weekly scans cover the time in between.
Do scans need to cover every page?
Not always. A representative set of templates (home, category, product, article, contact, checkout, account) often covers the patterns that repeat across the site. Crawling every URL on a large site can produce repetitive findings that map to a small number of underlying issues.
What scan tools work for scheduled monitoring?
Axe, WAVE, Lighthouse, and similar platforms all support scheduled or repeatable scanning. The tool matters less than the cadence and the workflow for acting on results.
How should I act on scan results?
Triage by severity and impact. New issues get logged, assigned, and fixed. Repeat issues point to a template or component problem that deserves a structural fix rather than page-by-page edits. Issues tied to ongoing remediation get cross-referenced against the audit report so nothing gets double-counted.
Scan cadence is a calibration, not a rule. Match it to how your site changes, layer it under a (manual) audit, and adjust when risk shifts.
Contact Accessible.org to discuss audits and ongoing scan monitoring for your site.
